Internet users often use search engines to search for content based on keywords submitted to the search engine. The search engines generally return a list of web pages that include at least one of the submitted keywords or are somehow related to the submitted keywords. The search engines also typically return a snippet of the content text that includes, or is near the submitted keywords. To obtain further content from a resulting web page, a user generally selects a uniform resource locator (URL) link associated with the listed web page. The web page content is then retrieved and displayed in the user's browser.
Some search services, such as the Ben Franklin search service provided by Vivisimo, Inc., include a preview button next to each listed search result. Selecting the preview button causes a pane to appear below the listed search result. The pane displays the web page of that listed search result. The user can scroll through the web page within the pane. The web page is displayed within the list of search results, so that the user can still see the other listed search results.
Users can also search for images, videos, and audio content with keywords. For example, when searching for images, search engines usually return a list of thumbnail images. Each thumbnail image is accompanied by a URL that the user can select to access the full image and/or a web page that contains the image. One technique for determining a relevant image in a web page is to detect an image file that is surrounded by, or partially embedded within text that includes one or more of the salient keywords. In the above searches, the search results comprise a sample of web page content, and the user generally must access and review the entire page to determine other content. It would be useful to preview and obtain additional content that is relevant to the keywords or other search criteria. For example, many ‘gallery’ style pages contain more than just a single relevant image; so a user may wish to preview all images within a web page that are related to the search keywords. Alternatively, the user may wish to preview more complete portions of text that are related to the search keywords, rather than just the snippet that is generally provided by current search engines. The user may also wish to obtain a copy of those images, text, or other media content without having to access and review a whole web site. It is with respect to these and other issues that the present invention is directed.